


Bonds

by Scarlet66



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: A bit of canon divergence, AU, Because I like happy endings okay, Gen, More like really intense friendship, Not THAT romancey, Okay a lot of canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:03:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2782472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet66/pseuds/Scarlet66
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war changed everyone and everything. Comrades-in-arms came and went, lived and died. Loved ones were lost forever, memories of a better time were crushed. Skulduggery Pleasant, to the Dead Men's dismay, was no exception. Just when they start to worry that he is too far gone, a girl by the name of Valkyrie Cain enters his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Change

**Author's Note:**

> AU where none of the Dead Men actually died and no one betrayed anyone because I'm unhappy about the fact that EVERYONE IS DEAD and YAY HAPPY ENDINGS.

The last time any of the Dead Men saw Skulduggery Pleasant smile before he returned from the grave, bringing with him a rage that burned silently like black fire and covered him from head to toe, was also the last time they saw him together with his family. 

 

* * *

 

When he first came back to them, Hopeless, like the other Dead Men, felt a strange mixture of immense relief and stomach-churning horror. 

_What had they done to him?_

It was more than just the fact that he had been stripped of his flesh.

It was the fact that now he would dispatch his enemies without a second thought, without so much as a single glance at them, without so much as a roar or a twitch of anger. It was the fact that even in group missions he would be the one to be fighting the furthest away from the rest of the team. It was the fact that as time went on, he lapsed into longer and longer periods of motionless silence. 

Skulduggery was losing himself, and there was nothing Hopeless could do about it.

And then one day he disappeared, and there was nothing any of them could do about that either.

 

* * *

 

When he came back a second time, Larrikin cried.

He tackled his friend to the ground. Or he would have, if Skulduggery hadn't so gracefully sidestepped him, sending him crashing head-first into the stone wall behind him. 

"The day hasn't yet dawned where I would allow myself to be bear-hugged by you, Larrikin." 

Larrikin could almost hear the familiar mocking smile in his voice. Almost. There was something else there, something lurking beneath the surface. It sounded like exhaustion, and it sounded so brittle, so fragile that Larrikin felt that if he forcefully tried to pull it up it would spread to the rest of Skulduggery like a disease and leave him crumbling to dust. The others could sense it too.

So Larrikin shoved the feeling aside, opting instead to go for another flying hug, only to be taken down again, this time by a foot to the face.

 

* * *

 

The war was over, and it was on a rainy day that Anton Shudder found him standing in front of his family grave.

Celebrations had been going on for a week now, and there were no signs of it stopping any time soon. Even a sudden downpour in the middle of winter couldn't dampen the overwhelming sense of joy and relief. The Dead Men were no different; the only thing that had even come close to wiping the grins off their faces was the sudden realization that one of them was missing. Anton, who, as expected, was not one for parties, had immediately gone to the graveyard. 

It was there that Skulduggery told him he would abandon his family crest, with a peculiar, lifeless quiet that contrasted his usual display of annoying over-confidence. The rain soaked through his coat, weighing it down. 

Anton's usual somber expression grew even more so as he wondered, not for the first time, when his friend had started speaking in such a way.

 

* * *

 

It was decades after the war, on a chilly February night when Erskine Ravel coincidentally encountered the skeleton detective on the streets of London.

He looked at the frightened, struggling man - already pleading incoherently for his life - pinned underneath his shoe. "Job?" he asked. 

A gunshot. And another. Screams shattered the silence of the darkness as blood flowed out of the two bullet holes in the man's hands like rivers, dying them scarlet. 

"Yeah," Skulduggery replied matter-of-factly, as if he had just been asked if he was doing laundry. ( _Are you going shopping? Yeah. Taking the dog out for a walk? Yeah. Torturing a man? Yeah.)_

"Merciless as always," Erskine said quietly.  _Well,_ he added as an afterthought,  _not always._

Later that night after he and Skulduggery said their goodbyes, Erskine realized why the man's red hands had disturbed him so much, and why Skulduggery's eyeless gaze had almost drilled another hole through them as he cuffed him. 

 

* * *

 

It was at the Requiem Ball, where he reunited with the other Dead Men for the first time in many, many years, that Saracen Rue saw Skulduggery Pleasant again. 

He blinked. 

At least he thought that was Skulduggery Pleasant.

_No. It is him._

Where there should have been a skull was, instead, a face, unfamiliar yet familiar. Unfamiliar in his hair, now dark and slightly longer, the colour of his eyes, now a deep, jade green, the shape of his eyebrows, the structure of his nose. Familiar in the way his mouth curved upward at the corners into a smile none of the Dead Men thought they would ever be able to see again. The others, standing around Saracen, also couldn't help but stare (while Ghastly and Erskine stood off to the side and smirked knowingly).

It wasn't because of the façade- Ghastly had already informed them of China's little project when he told them all to come to the ball (all the while trying not to break the phone when one - or all - of them made some snide remark about having to be respectful to the _almighty_ _Elder Bespoke_ ). 

It was because of the girl with obsidian hair and obsidian eyes standing beside him. 

 _Valkyrie Cain,_ Ghastly had told them.  _His new partner._

Skulduggery turned and noticed them, tilting his head and arching an eyebrow at their staring. The two of them came over. Tearful hugs were attempted (by Larrikin, of course) and avoided, and introductions were made. 

As it turned out, Valkyrie Cain was the perfect partner for the skeleton detective.  _No wonder she lasted five years,_ Saracen thought humourously. 

"What do you mean _I'm not allowed to eat_?" The girl was barely able to contain her boiling wrath. "There's food all around me and you're telling me I'm not allowed to touch any of it?!"

"I didn't say that-"

"You  _just_ said it."

"I said you should _restrain_ yourself. But you must believe me when I say there is a very, very good reason for this."

"Oh yeah? Let's hear it then."

"Well, I've noticed lately that you've been... gaining."

"...Gaining?"

"You barely fit in the dress I prepared for you this evening, so I was a tad concerned..."

Valkyrie's eyes slowly enlarged into giant, horrified circles. She looked down at herself, then back up at him. "You - Are you trying to tell me I'm  _fat?_ "

"Well, when you put it _that_ way - _Ow -_ "

A sudden and powerful kick to the shin sent Skulduggery stumbling for support against the table placed fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at the situation - close beside him. Valkyrie looked at him, complete and utter disgust twisting her pretty face into a scowl, and walked away, muttering curses under her breath. 

Saracen and the others burst out laughing, and when Skulduggery turned an icy glare toward them -  _say a word and I will_ end _you_ \- they laughed even harder.

The nine of them - after Valkyrie had come back, carrying a plateful of food stacked up like a mountain - spent the rest of the evening catching up and sharing stories. At least until everything went to hell with Melancholia's attack.

It was after that mess that the Dead Men saw them again, outside, walking towards the Bentley. They were coming from the direction of the entrance, where Erskine and Ghastly were yelling out orders, trying to calm the hysteria. This time Valkyrie was in Skulduggery's arms, her arms around his neck and her head resting against his shoulder. She was asleep, her black clothes in messy tatters. 

 _Taking her home_ , Skulduggery mouthed at them.

He still had his façade on. Even though he could now switch between a plethora of faces, he would keep that one for many years to come. Later when Saracen would ask him why he chose that particular face, Skulduggery would shrug and reply that Valkyrie had liked it, and he himself hadn't really cared. Saracen would then ask why he would bother to wear it even in front of people who knew him, and Skulduggery would answer, "It feels nice having a face again. Not the one I used to have, since that's already in the past, but one that belongs to me, and me alone. It helps me remember who I am now." A slight pause. "It's a bit like having a home, I suppose." Saracen would raise an uncomprehending eyebrow, but then Skulduggery would turn to the sound of Valkyrie's voice as she walks down the Sanctuary corridor towards them, waving and smiling, and he would suddenly understand. 

_A home to go back to, no matter how different things may become. An anchor. A safe haven._

Saracen smiled now, watching him slide her off of his arms into the Bentley's passenger seat with a gentleness he hadn't seen for three centuries.

 

* * *

 

The next time Skulduggery gathered all the Dead Men in one place was when they were in Gordon Edgley's study, and the subject of their conversation was how to hunt down Darquesse. 

"You didn't tell us," Dexter Vex said slowly in a low voice. "You knew all this time, and you didn't tell us."

Skulduggery didn't answer, hat pulled down to cover his eyes. He was sitting on the edge of Gordon's desk, hands resting on his legs, fingers loosely intertwined. He was so still it was as if he wasn't alive. Everyone else - Gordon, Fletcher and Stephanie were there too - was either standing or sitting down on chairs brought in from the living room, looking at him silently.

"Well? Anything you have to say for yourself?"

The truth was that Dexter already knew why he hadn't told anyone. Everyone knew, and they were definitely pissed, sure, but they had already forgiven him. 

Finally Skulduggery looked up, his jade eyes flashing with new-found determination. "We're getting her back."

"And if we can't?"

It was only for a hundredth of a second that the strength left Skulduggery's gaze, but it was enough for Dexter to notice because when it returned, something inside the dead man had shifted, had changed. "Then we kill her."

"If it was the past you, you would have done that years ago without hesitation." Dexter's eyes left the other man's face and settled on his bare hands. He watched them clench into fists so tightly that if Skulduggery was made of genuine flesh, his nails would have drawn blood.

"Yes, well," Skulduggery murmured, "I never really liked past me."

When they got her back, he shrugged, with that expression on his face that said,  _Of_ course _I made it work. I'm Skulduggery Pleasant._ But when Valkyrie, tears in her eyes, ignoring Kenspeckle and Synecdoche's protests, scrambled off of the bed and all but tackled him with a hug, his overwhelming relief as he hugged her back was almost painfully obvious. 

Larrikin, watching from behind Dexter, made an offended noise. 

 

* * *

 

 _I never really liked past me_  were the first words that came to Ghastly Bespoke's mind when his long-time best friend stepped out of the darkness that was Lord Vile's armour like one would step out of a portal of black smoke, before collapsing onto his knees and falling forward, unconscious before he hit the ground. 

First came confusion.

And then suddenly it all came together in his head with a rather nasty  _click_.

Why Vile had appeared after Skulduggery had disappeared, and why Skulduggery had come back just as Vile had gone away.

Why the way Vile had tilted his head just before tearing Ghastly's mother apart before his eyes had seemed so vaguely familiar.

Why Vile had apparently come to fight Melancholia on the night of the Requiem Ball before inexplicably disappearing and leaving everyone within a hundred-kilometre radius, for once, alive. 

Why, when just now Darquesse had flown toward them like a bullet train, Vile had moved in front of them, arms up, masses of shadows gathering around him and ready to attack or defend as needed, and had taken the brunt of the damage. 

Why Vile had flicked them all away with shadowy tendrils whenever he and Darquesse got too close, not as if he had wanted to harm them, but as if he had wanted to get them out of the way. 

Why, when Darquesse was finally beaten and Valkyrie had delivered the final blow herself, Vile had quietly stood behind her as if he was guarding or comforting her.

Why, when Ghastly, in a blind rage as images of his mother's last moments flashed behind his eyes, had charged at a wounded, motionless Vile, Valkyrie had leapt in between them, arms up in front of her in a defensive position -  _she was going to block him with her own body?_ he thought - with frantic desperation in her wide eyes.

Fortunately, Ghastly stopped himself in time, fist frozen mere centimetres from her face.

By then part of him had already managed to piece things together, while the other apart ran around in circles in vicious denial. That other part thought of Baron Vengeous. 

 _But even Vengeous couldn't bring out the armour's full power_ , the first part of him told the other.  _Skulduggery told you himself._

Skulduggery told him.

_The only one who could use Vile's armour, Vile's power, with such expertise is Vile himself._

And then as the armour evaporated from Skulduggery Pleasant's body, the darkness seeping underneath his clothes and into his skin as if it was returning to its master, Ghastly realized as the blood in his veins ran cold that his long-time best friend was the one who had killed his mother.

"Our  _comrades_ ," Larrikin whispered somewhere behind him, the humour absent from his voice, "were murdered by one of our own?"

Valkyrie was crouching on the ground between the unconscious Vile - Skulduggery - and the Dead Men, her gaze directed at them, determined and unwavering. Her arms were tense and raised slightly at her sides, as if she was ready to protect her partner from a threat in front of her. 

The expression of someone who was welcoming the end with unwillingly open arms curved her mouth into a tired but resolute smile. "If you're going to kill him," she said, "you might as well kill me too."

And Ghastly, fists clenched as tightly as Skulduggery's had been at Gordon's house, couldn't do it.

 


	2. Anchor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out way longer than I intended OTL

A familiar feeling of fear, one that did not come from battle or the possibility of injury or death, wrapped itself around his body like chains. It was something that scared him more than anything else, and it threatened to steal the breath from his body. 

 _Not like I even have any lungs,_ Skulduggery thought. 

It scared him, has haunted him for a century and a half, but now he had no way of avoiding it. He had to face it head on.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, not averting his eyes. "I really am. And I know my apologies would never be able to fix what I've already broken. If this was a hundred fifty years ago I would have let you kill me. I would have begged you to. But now, it's different. Now, I have something I need to do." He looked down at his hands. "Something I have to live for."

 

* * *

 

After the Dead Men went their separate ways and Ghastly quit his job as Elder and left Roarhaven - against Erskine's protests - Valkyrie noticed that Skulduggery grew a lot quieter.

"It's not your fault," he told her one afternoon before she could even get half a  _sorry_  out of her mouth. The damn detective saw  _everything._ "They were bound to find out someday, and I never expected forgiveness."

Valkyrie mentally added  _Screwing up your best friend's relationships with all of his other best friends_  to her now very lengthy list titled _Everything Valkyrie Cain Has Done Wrong In Her Life._

 _At the very least,_ she promised herself,  _I'll stay with him. Until the end._

 

* * *

 

Years passed, seasons changed, and Skulduggery quickly returned to his usual irritating know-it-all demeanour. 

But every once in a while when they were at his house, Valkyrie would notice him lapsing into silence, staring at a simply framed picture the nine of them had taken on one of the few days where they'd had nothing better to do than to laze around Skulduggery's living room and complain about how boring his house was. At those times, Valkyrie would find herself also staring at the memory of a life that seemed so far away.

 _Until the end,_  she reminded herself. No matter how much things changed, this was the one thing that wouldn't. She wouldn't allow it to.

 

* * *

 

"But he came  _back,_ " Valkyrie insisted, desperation creeping into her voice.  _Calm down_ , she told herself.  _Don't lose it._  "You know why I know that he's good? Because unlike me, he pulled himself back. He dug himself out of that hole and he regained control  _through his own strength_. And he managed to do it because of you, Ghastly." She was beginning to talk faster, words somersaulting out of her mouth. "He told me. He told me that he saw you standing there, bruised and bleeding, and all of a sudden he couldn't move, and that was how he brought himself back, because even as Lord Vile he couldn't bring himself to kill his  _best friend."_

She took a deep, shaky breath, forcing herself to slow down. Her voice came quieter now. "He wrenched himself away from Vile's grip. He ditched all that power. Willingly. For all of you.  _To come back to all of you._ " She looked at them, pleading, begging them to understand, because they had to,  _they had to._ Her voice dropped even further to a whisper. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

 

* * *

 

When the Dead Men reunited - nearly half a century later, once more at the Requiem Ball - there was silence. There were half-assed attempts at making small talk. And there was so much awkward in the air Valkyrie felt like she was bathing in it.

Her hands, clasped behind her, were starting to get sweaty even though they were outside in the yard, where a breeze softly lifted her hair and tickled her skin. Eventually she couldn't take it anymore. She ducked behind a tree so that she would be out of sight and barely within earshot. She leaned against it, feeling the cool roughness of the bark against her bare shoulders.

After another period of silence it was Hopeless' voice that first drifted to Valkyrie's ears, and she prayed that the words coming out of his mouth were the words Skulduggery so desperately needed to hear. Words that would never alleviate his burden if she were the one to say them, no matter how much she meant them.

The next voice she heard belonged to Larrikin.

Then Anton.

Followed by Erskine, Saracen, and Dexter.

All Valkyrie could hear was the indistinct murmuring of voices. It wasn't the happy reunion she had hoped for, but they were talking. Finally. After almost fifty years. 

And then, Ghastly. 

 

* * *

 

The man standing before Ghastly - wearing the exact same face as he did fifty years ago - looked at him straight in the eye, not running away. Ready to take any form of punishment he was about to receive, but not willing to allow death to be one of them. 

After he was brought back from the dead, Skulduggery never cared about his own life, or his mental well-being, for that matter. He would fight and fight and fight, endlessly, never resting, every single day. As the only one in the team who never needed any sleep he would take over half of the night watches. All of them had wondered about the thoughts that would pass through that skull of his as he sat, alone, staring at the campfire during those long nights. His anger burned like that fire - it was what drove him, kept him going - but sometimes it looked as if it were on the verge of flickering out in the face of a strong wind.

When he disappeared, the possibility that he had finally given up had crossed their minds, but none of them were ever willing to admit it. When he returned, he had shown just the slightest hint of a sense of self-preservation, and even though his sudden will to survive had seemed more like a burden than an asset for him, Ghastly and the others had decided to simply be grateful that it had given their friend back to them. 

Now, and back when Skulduggery had a family to live for, to protect, were the only times he treated life as a blessing rather than a punishment. He hid it well, extremely well, during the years after the war, but it was still there. Ghastly had learned to read that skull of his better than any human face.

He should have been happy for him. Valkyrie had told them everything she knew shortly after the battle against Darquesse had ended - about how and why Vile had been born, about how Skulduggery had wrestled his sanity back from the darker side of himself, about how the only times Skulduggery used Vile's power after the war was when it was absolutely necessary, about his resolve to do something good for the world, to fight for redemption.

And somehow, Ghastly had already known all that before she had said it. They hadn't been friends for four hundred years for nothing. He knew that despite Skulduggery's apparent obsession with himself, the one about whom he was the most critical was always, in the end, himself. He knew that the realization that the blood of millions stained his hands would have shattered him to bits the instant it hit him. He knew that, for a hundred fifty years, the only reason he hadn't told them what he had done, the only reason he even bothered to fight back when an enemy attacked him, was to somehow find a way to pay back the debt he owed the world, even if he knew he would never be able to. He knew that Vile - Skulduggery - had protected them that day in Roarhaven, had saved their lives when Darquesse was about to extinguish them like insects.

Ghastly knew all that, and he should have been able to understand it, to understand  _him,_ and yet -

He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists. 

"I can't forgive you."

Skulduggery said nothing, his expression remaining still like stone.

"You've killed  _millions._  Most of them  _innocent_ _people_."

Still nothing.

"You killed my mother."

His green eyes flickered slightly. 

"You'd have to be an idiot to think that this friendship could go back to the way it was before. And Skulduggery Pleasant is no idiot, is he?"

A ghost of a smile pulled at Skulduggery's mouth. "No, he is not."

"I won't be as lenient as the others. Don't think that I'll ever forgive you. Don't hope for it."

"I never have."

"And know that if you ever die, allow yourself to be killed or go  _off yourself_  or whatever before I do forgive you, I'll curse you. I'll curse you for as long as I live and I'll make sure whatever poor being you're reborn as in your next life will be absolutely miserable."

"...It appears that I'll have to live for a quite a long time."

"Damn right. You  _owe_ me this. No matter what, you're not allowed to keel over before I do. You're going to spend every single second for the remainder of your life, up until your final dying breath, making up for what you've done."

"I know."

"And Valkyrie. Don't you dare abandon her. If you let anything happen to her, I won't forgive you either."

Skulduggery blinked, slowly. "The last time I tried to prioritize Valkyrie and the world at the same time, things did not exactly go well."

"Shut up. You're doing it, whether you like it or not. Or are you saying that the great Skulduggery Pleasant can't pull it off?"

Skulduggery's mouth twitched, slowly curving into a smile. Ghastly wanted to wipe it off. Badly. Using his fists. 

"So are you going to reopen your shop?"

Ghastly had to wait a few moments before his voice came out. Then, "What?"

"Your shop. Are you going to reopen it?" Skulduggery tugged gently at the collar of his tuxedo. "Because I haven't gotten a new suit from you in fifty years and my closet is feeling quite lonely."

"You can't be serious."

"I don't have to be a friend to be a paying customer." His head tilted, his hat still not slipping off his head despite the wind and the dangerous angle at which he wore it. (Like always.) The irritating smile was still on his face. (Like always.) "And Tanith misses you."

"Unbelievable." Ghastly's breath came out as something between a sigh and a hiss. "You're an idiot."

 

* * *

 

When Skulduggery came and tapped Valkyrie on the arm, his shoulders had lost some of the rigidity he had built up over the years, and his steps seemed lighter, softer. Like a burden - or at least some of it - had been lifted off of him. 

"You're going to catch a cold," he warned. In the next moment she sneezed, and he sighed. 

"My jacket's in the car," she said, wrapping her arms around herself. She hadn't realized that the temperature had dropped so much. 

"Someday," he said, taking his jacket off and draping it over her shoulders, "I'm going to have to look for a new partner. When they ask me what happened to my old one, I'll have to make up some story about her being a fantastic hero who courageously gave her life while trying to save the universe because I won't want to have to tell them that she died of something as ordinary and lame as a cold." He laughed, briefly and quietly, when Valkyrie narrowed her eyes at him. He tilted his head toward the mansion. "We should get inside."

He turned, walking ahead of her. A smile came to her face as she realized his footsteps really  _were_ lighter. 

"Valkyrie," a voice called from behind. 

She turned and saw Saracen standing there, alone in the dark. The others had already vanished. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get a single syllable out Valkyrie blurted, "Thank you."

He raised an eyebrow. "What for?"

"Y'know," Valkyrie shifted on her feet, "for coming. Tell the others I said thank you too."

She paused, and Saracen, sensing that she had more to say, waited patiently. "Really. Thanks. I'm - I'm sorry if I seemed too high-strung the last time I saw you guys. I was just - I... My parents are dead. It happened a little while before I bumped into you."

Saracen exhaled. "I'm sorry."

"Both of them went peacefully in their sleep, one after the other, so I guess I can't really complain there. But," a sob threatened to rise in her throat but she pushed it down, "I didn't take it very well. I guess I was just so used to seeing people explode or be impaled or have their limbs hacked off that when I saw death take them so calmly, so  _quietly_ , I just - Because the thing is, in a fight you can save people, make sure they don't die. But this - this was something I couldn't stop. So I lost it. I couldn't eat or sleep for weeks. I had nightmares. I would cry out of the blue, and when I started I couldn't stop. And then I would think about Alice, think about how this would happen to her too someday, and I couldn't take it. I haven't seen her in years. And Skulduggery was there for me, every step of the way.

"And then I realized how much he's done for me, and that was when I  _really_  started feeling like crap. He'd try to hide it from me, but I've been with him long enough to know when he's upset even without the face. Those moments were far and few in between, but they were still there. He'd stare at old photos, slow down every time we drove by Ghastly's shop, talk quieter every time he reported to Erskine. It was frustrating, not being able to do anything. My parents dying just reminded me of how useless, how powerless I was. Being the girl who almost destroyed the world and killed everyone she loved and still has screaming nightmares about it, telling him 'It's not your fault, everything will be okay' probably isn't very convincing." 

She laughed derisively, grasping the jacket tighter around herself, the fabric rustling as she did so. "I hated it. Hated it  _so much_. Not being able to do anything for him when he was the one who saved me. He saw everything that was twisted and cruel and dark inside of me and accepted it. He helped me, fought with me, never left me alone." Her voice cracked. Tears were coming now, hot and fast, and she tried furiously to blink them back. "He's my best friend, and I love him, and I couldn't do anything to help him."

"Valkyrie." Saracen's hand rested gently on her shoulder. "That's not true. Not true at all. Your being there has helped him more than you could imagine. More than we did when he came back from the dead." A pained expression settled on his face as he looked down at her. The hand on her shoulder tightened slightly. "We saw what was happening to him, and we left it alone. Left  _him_ alone. We thought he needed space, needed time to clear his thoughts, and we were wrong.

"What Vile did was atrocious. There's no denying that. But we also can't deny that we had a hand in his birth."

"That isn't true -"

"It is, Valkyrie. We were his closest friends, and we failed him. We all know this - it's the conclusion we've all come to after mulling over it for half a century. Ghastly knows this too. That's why, being the kind-hearted fool he is, he can't hate Skulduggery no matter how much he tries to convince himself he does.

"So don't tell yourself you're useless. Don't back away from him. Stay with him. Nag him. And have confidence. He has seen you at your worst, but I'm willing to bet you've seen him at his worst as well. Your existence keeps him anchored here, reminds him that he will always have somewhere to return to." He smiled encouragingly. "So do me a favour, and don't let yourself be killed, alright? For your sake and his."

Valkyrie laughed, and suddenly she felt much lighter. Saracen's words and the faint scent of Skulduggery's house and the Bentley and Skulduggery himself that emanated from his jacket wrapped around her like a blanket, filling her with a fuzzy warmth. "Thank you, Saracen. And no, I won't die or leave him. If I did, who else would he have to exchange intelligent conversation with?"

 

* * *

 

"Really," Erskine rolled his eyes, "you couldn't have just said 'I don't _really_ hate you, Skulduggery, because I know you're a good guy and you've been doing everything you can to protect the world. I mean, you should still try to make up for it and everything, but stop beating yourself up over it. Have a life. Stay with Valkyrie. Be happy -'"

"Shut up."

"You know, they have a name for people like you in Japanese culture. If I recall correctly it started with a t -"

"I said  _shut up,_ " Ghastly repeated, his fists twitching, and Erskine shut his mouth and raised his hands in surrender. 

 

* * *

 

It was Christmas, and Valkyrie sighed as she sat on the one area of the pavement that wasn't covered by snow, watching Skulduggery blast the poor man through yet another house. By then the man had stopped trying to incinerate them both with fireballs.

"You know," she called, "just because this neighbourhood is abandoned doesn't mean you can or should wreck it like this."

"Nonsense," Skulduggery yelled, not bothering to look back as he strolled through the hole in the wall, disappearing into the dark interior of the house. His voice reached Valkyrie's ears muted, but audible. "Abandoned neighbourhoods are destined to be destroyed. Every single house on this block should be honoured - moved to tears, in fact - to be bestowed the honour of being torn down by the magnificent yours truly."

Valkyrie rolled her eyes. The next thing she knew, the body of a ninety kilogram man was whipping past her barely half a metre away from her, the wind sending her hair flying in all directions, and crashed into the house behind her. The structure gave out a huge protesting groan as the front threatened to cave in on itself. She looked at the crater the man had made in the front door, and then back at Skulduggery, who was walking calmly towards her. 

" _Dude._ "

"Yes?"

"You almost _killed me_."

"My apologies. I thought you would be capable enough to dodge."

Valkyrie mumbled something incoherent, which Skulduggery ignored as he strolled into the house behind her, grabbed the man, who, at this point was somehow miraculously - or unfortunately, from the man's point of view - still conscious, and threw him out. He hit the ground with a cry and rolled gracelessly to a stop in front of Valkyrie, whimpering. 

Skulduggery looked down at him with the expression of someone about to open a present.  _The only thing more terrifying than his skull,_ Valkyrie thought,  _is his smile._ She immediately felt sorry for this man. When Skulduggery Pleasant smiled at you like he was genuinely happy, you were either Valkyrie Cain, or you were in for a horrible, horrible death. 

(Sometimes she suspected that this was the only reason he even bothered to wear a permanent façade.)

"I'm not going to bother to ask for your name," Skulduggery said, the frightening smile still plastered on his face. "From what I've seen of your skills, you're no one special. You would probably give me a fake name anyway, which I wouldn't have any way of verifying, because, like I said, you're no one special and no one would have heard of you. What I want to know is why you've been so incompetently following us, and why you would immediately attack us just for kindly asking you why you were so incompetently following us."

The man looked at the detective with frenzied fear in his wide eyes, and then shifted his glance to Valkyrie. His next words were marred by the swelling that covered his face and the fact that he was missing several teeth. "I - w- wash tohld ta jeck up on Dar- Dargueshe," he mumbled. Valkyrie flinched. 

_Even after fifty years._

"T- ta be able to l- loogat what he'sh doing ta me and shtill be sho galm a- aboud id," he spat at her, blood and spittle flying out of his mouth, hatred overtaking the fear in his glare, "y-ya're both monshte-"

His words broke off with a gurgle and several  _snaps_ as Skulduggery brought his foot down on the man's ribs with enough force to crack the pavement beneath him. The man spewed up blood and vomit, choking on his own fluids.

The smile was gone, replaced by merciless and emotionless cruelty. 

"Skulduggery," Valkyrie whispered. 

He looked at her.

"I'm fine." She stretched her mouth into a weary smile. "I'm used to it."

And she was. It stung, but she could cope. She had friends who understood her and wouldn't leave her. 

Skulduggery looked at her for a moment longer, then sighed. He lifted his foot off of the man's stomach and kicked him once, hard, in the temple. The man's eyes rolled back into his head and he stopped coughing. The only sign he was still alive was his ragged breathing. 

After handing the man to Sanctuary operatives, they walked back to the Bentley. Valkyrie collapsed onto the passenger's seat and leaned back against the headrest, closing her eyes and exhaling. 

Skulduggery climbed into the driver's seat beside her, buckling his seatbelt. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." She wasn't lying. 

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Because I could always go back there and -"

"I'm fine, Skulduggery, and no, you should not go back there and rip his lungs out." She buckled her seatbelt with a resounding  _click._

"Wow. You read my mind."

"I've known you for nearly sixty years."

"...You're old."

"Says the five hundred year old skeleton."

"I'm not five hundred  _yet._ "

"Close enough."

The Bentley's engine purred to life and they rolled out of the neighbourhood, which was now on the verge of collapse thanks to Skulduggery's temper. 

"Where to?" Skulduggery asked. "Home? You look tired."

Valkyrie shook her head, which was leaning on the car window. "I was thinking that I should go see Alice, actually."

Skulduggery looked at her. "You're sure about that? The last time you tried -"

"Yes, I'm sure." Valkyrie shot him a half-hearted glare, then turned back to the window. "It's Christmas. And if Stephanie saw me now, she'd want to beat the hell out of me."

"Do you want me to come?"

"Yes, please," she said quietly.

 

* * *

 

A bare hand left the steering wheel and settled on top of hers, and it stayed there throughout the entire car ride - while Valkyrie squirmed and fidgeted, bringing her knees up and hugging them and then putting them down again - until they stopped in front of a familiar house. 

Her parents' house.

Alice - and her family - had moved in after Desmond and Melissa Edgley had passed away. It looked slightly different now; the porch and the front of the house were lined with potted plants. The green of the leaves peeked out from behind a blanket of white.

"Alice always had a green touch." Valkyrie smiled. "And - oh right, before I forget -" She unbuckled her seatbelt, twisting around and reaching toward the back seat. 

Skulduggery turned, an eyebrow raised. "What are you doing?"

Valkyrie pulled herself back, settled back into her seat, with a rectangular package wrapped in green and gold in her hands. She handed it to him. "Merry Christmas." She grinned.

He took it, examining it, then looked at the back seat. "When did you have time to hide this there?"

His partner's eyebrows moved in a way that Skulduggery could only describe as waggling, and he had to bite back laughter as she answered. "Who knows? Open it."

The wrapping was rather messy; the edges were jagged, evidently from being torn with brute force. Skulduggery could imagine Valkyrie storming around her mansion, unable to find the pair of scissors she had misplaced - probably under her bed - only to give up and rip the wrapping paper instead. And then after several minutes of attempting and failing to fold it neatly around the box, she would swear, opting instead to wrap it as hastily as possible, just hoping to be done with it. She would grin in a satisfied manner, thinking,  _He's going to have fun opening this._

They had had a tradition for two decades - a contest, really - of seeing who would be able to open the other's present in the least damaging way possible. The loser had to do all the paperwork for all cases for the next five weeks. So far, Valkyrie had never won a single match.

Skulduggery chuckled.  _Amateur_ , he thought.

With careful fingers, he ripped off each piece of tape, quickly but gently. When he was done, the wrapping all but fell apart on its own. He looked up and his smile widened when he saw Valkyrie's disgruntled expression, mouth pressed tightly together.

Underneath the wrapping was a box. Skulduggery opened the lid, revealing an ornate picture frame inside. It was a gleaming silver, its surface decorated intricately with carved patterns that swirled and dotted and curved around the frame. 

Skulduggery ran his fingers over the grooves, feeling the smoothness underneath his fingertips. "Well," he said after a moment, "this is beautiful. Thank you."

Valkyrie beamed. "You better be happy with it. That cost me half a month's salary. And that was _after_ I very convincingly asked the guy to drop the price."

"Not convincingly enough, apparently." Skulduggery shook his head sadly. "Have you learned nothing from me these past sixty years?"

"Oh, shut up. That, by the way, is for that picture of the nine of us in your living room. You're always staring at it - yes, I noticed - so I figured it should be put in a prettier frame."

"Thank you," he said again, a touch of gratitude in his voice. "And I noticed you noticing."

And he did. He noticed that she worried about him. 

"Well, I noticed you noticing me noticing."

"Well, I -"

"Okay, okay, enough." Valkyrie put her hands up. "So where's my present?"

"Ah." He looked innocently at the roof of the Bentley, avoiding eye contact. 

Valkyrie's expression sank. "You forgot?"

"You see, Valkyrie, there are times in life when detectives have other priorities outside of holidays, like this case for example -"

His partner stared at him, wide-eyed and heartbroken. 

"- and -" Skulduggery broke off, laughter spilling out. He clamped his mouth together as tightly as possible while reaching behind him and found the small cube package. He handed it to her, his hand slightly shaking as he tried - and failed - to stop laughing.

She snatched it from him with an angry huff and swatted his outstretched arm. Then she proceeded to try to open the wrapping as gently as possible, while Skulduggery watched her with amusement. He had wrapped the box with several layers of wrapping paper, each layer firmly taped in several places to the previous. No more than four minutes of incessant grumbling and muttered swearing had passed before Valkyrie, eyebrow twitching, all but clawed the remaining layers of paper off with savage delight. 

Skulduggery shook his head again. "Absolutely no patience."

"Patience is for idiots and weaklings."

She opened the wooden box, and inside sat a small and brightly glowing snow globe. Within the glass dome was a small tree, beautifully adorned with sparkling lights in every colour Valkyrie could imagine. The light reflected off of the glass and the snow that gently fluttered and swirled around the tree, painting faint ephemeral spots of colour inside the globe that faded and reappeared, repeatedly. It took her breath away.

"I figured you needed some more beauty in your life to admire. When you're not looking at me, of course."

She punched his arm. "How did you get this to work? Does it have an energy source or something?"

"Magic." 

Valkyrie smiled as she softly stroked the glass. "Thanks. I love it."

"I knew you would."

It was these rare moments that Skulduggery wanted to preserve, to put into a snow globe of his own. Moments where evil didn't exist, where no one wanted to destroy the world, or dominate it, or kill everyone in it. Moments where there was no Lord Vile, no Darquesse, and there wasn't a weight called the past resting heavily upon their shoulders. Where he and his best friend and partner could sit together in his car without a worry in the world. The simple moments where a smile, free of age and traumatic experiences, young and innocent, graced her features. 

It was during these rare moments that Skulduggery felt truly grateful - despite the fact that no, the world was not as pretty or worry-free as he would have preferred - that he had the fortune of meeting Valkyrie Cain, because she was the one good thing, the one mistake he didn't make, in his life. 

Valkyrie placed the snow globe on top of its box carefully over the dashboard, beside the picture frame. "There," she whispered. She looked out the window. It was getting dark outside, and the soft orange glow of lights from inside the house was warm. "We should go."

Skulduggery coughed. "About that. You see, Valkyrie, I've never been one for Christmas gatherings, so -"

She turned to him, disappointment in her eyes. "You said you'd come."

"I'll stay out here. Provide you moral support," he gestured around him, "from this here beautiful car."

"Please?" She leaned in, pleading, her eyes widening and lips tweaking in that way she knew Skulduggery couldn't refuse. "I can't face her alone. And - and it's not like Alice hates you or anything. Hell, she even  _likes_ you. Please?"

He looked at her for a moment. And sighed. "Alright."

She beamed, again, in that way she knew Skulduggery had a soft spot for.

The two climbed out of the car and walked up the front steps. Valkyrie, with a shaking hand, pressed the doorbell and stiffened when a "Be right there!" sounded from within the house, followed by a shuffling in furniture.

Skulduggery placed a hand on the small of her back, light but comforting, and she gave him a grateful smile. 

It was times like these when he knew that she needed him as much as he needed her.

 _Well,_ he thought as the door opened and warm light washed over them,  _I suppose this is still better than confronting your oldest friends about the fact that you used to be a mass-murdering psychopath._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughhh I wanted to make Stephanie not-dead too, but then I realized there would be no way for Darquesse to get another body if she was still alive ;_: SO SORRY STEPHANIE.

**Author's Note:**

> YES, KENSPECKLE GROUSE IS ALIVE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S DEAD? *laughs maniacally*


End file.
